Remains of devoured planet discovered

A DUST cloud around a dead star may be all that’s left of a planet that was eaten like a peach.

Observations of the cloud around the white dwarf G29-38 by a team led by William Reach of the California Institute of Technology in Pasadena suggest it is most likely to be the shredded core of a gas-giant planet like Jupiter (The Astrophysical Journal, in press).

The planet’s outer layers were apparently engulfed by the star’s preceding red giant phase. The core survived but may have been dragged close enough to the subsequent white dwarf to be torn apart by its gravity, creating the dust cloud.